Closure
by CaRiNeSs
Summary: When Tasha's trial date gets set, Dimitri realizes he needs answers for how she could do what she did to Rose and goes to confront her. Dimitri/Rose pairing. Set after Last Sacrifice.


Dimitri once again questioned why he was doing this but remembered Rose had insisted he get closure. She had noticed he had been distracted since they had learned of Tasha's trail date and her intuition told her he needed to see his friend one last time. Encouraging him to do what he needed to do, Dimitri decided to confront Tasha and find out why? How? How could she have done such a terrible thing? He didn't understand and wasn't sure he ever would but he had to at least try to understand her motives before it was too late. The trial date being set had rekindled the questions in his head which had brought him to where he was now; the holding area of the guardian building where criminals within the walls of the Moroi Royal Court were held.

The area seemed to be getting a lot more use than normal as of late and unfortunately Dimitri had known each of the people who had been behind the bars he now headed towards. The stark white walls surrounding him as he went into the darkened hallway brought back various memories, none of which were very pleasant. The first memory was of him and Rose coming down into the cell block to visit Victor Dashkov. That meeting had ended with him threatening Victor to keep his mouth shut about a certain incident that transpired between him and her. At the time, it was scandalous and could have caused both of them many issues as he was her mentor and teacher back at the academy. Those days had seemed so difficult and hard at the time but seemed to just be the beginning of the strife he had faced in order to be with Rose.

The second time he had been down in this awful place had been when he himself was behind the bars. He had been nothing more than an animal to his captors who forced him into his holding cell. He had been something to be gawked at numerous guardians had come to see if the rumors were true and his sole had been restored. He felt like a lab rat while everyone watched him run around on a wheel. He was in so much pain at the return of his conscious that he hadn't cared at the time if they looked at him and talked to him; he hadn't wanted to look at them or talk to them or even be alive in those days after he had been taken prisoner. Truth be told, had he been free to do what he wanted, he would have lived in much the same situation. He felt so bad for what he had done while Strigoi that even though he knew it wasn't really him, he couldn't forgive himself.

Or at least he couldn't at the time. Rose had come back into his life as a shining life force and showed him just how important compassion and forgiveness could be. She also showed him that she had completely forgiven him so he knew he had to do the same thing. He was grateful he was able to do so before it had been too late. Almost losing Rose to many times to count over the past few weeks had made him want to never take their love or her for granted again. They were finally together and he was going to make sure that that was the way it stayed.

The third time he had been in the guardians' holding cell area was when he had gone to break Rose out of prison. Him, having his soul barely restored, made him the perfect candidate to take the fall for the daring prison escape. He hadn't questioned Lissa when she had come to him and asked him to help. First, he felt he owned her his life and would have done whatever she had asked of him. Second, he had felt it was the right thing to do. He had known Rose could never have killed the Queen and being locked up in his room with no way to leave and no way to check on her had been driving him crazy. He hadn't even thought he could forgive himself let alone her forgiving him for the awful things he had done to her in Siberia but this was his chance to at least try to make amends. She was innocent and if taking her out of the court was the only way to protect her then he would have done that without question.

The rolling emotions in his chest caused it to hurt. When he had let the emotion back in and started feeling again, they had attached him and it was as if everything he felt now was one hundred times stronger than what they had been before. It was basically the exact opposite of being Strigoi. When he had turned, he felt absolutely no emotions at all. Now that he had been changed back, all he felt were emotions. It was confusing but he was working his way though it and he knew Rose was there to help him.

He came to a stop at the end of the hall, directly in front of Tasha's cell. Natasha Ozera sat on the small cot that sat to the right of the cell. The dim overhead lighting cast a pale gray shadow over her form and Dimitri saw once again what being locked up like an animal could do a person.

Tasha sat with her back against the wall and her knees drawn up to her chest. Her arms circled around them and her black hair that had always been shiny and vibrant was now a dull shadow hiding her face from view. At the sound of the approach, she shifted and saw Dimitri with the guard who had walked him down the corridor to her prison.

"What do you want?" Her small voice was a whisper compared to the strength and power she had always used and Dimitri winced when he saw her tear stained face. The scars caused by Strigoi so long ago now seemed a prominent feature that stood out against her shallow looking skin instead of the accent to her beauty they had been.

"I just had to see you." Dimitri replied, his voice timid as to show her he had come as a friend, not the scorned lover of the woman she had framed.

"I don't want you here." Her voice picked up volume as she stood and walked towards the door of the cell where the two guardians stood watching her.

Dimitri turned to the guardian beside him, "give us a minute will you?" He nodded and walked back down the hallway to his guard post. Dimitri then turned to Tasha. "I understand you not wanting me here but this is where I want to be right now. I need to talk to you Tasha. I have to know why? How could you do such a thing? I thought I knew you."

The pain in his voice gave Tasha pause for a moment before she laughed and turned from him. "You do know me. Or at least the me I use to be. I snapped. I knew that Tatiana was leading us down the wrong path and I couldn't just sit there and do nothing. She was going to destroy both Moroi and Dhampirs. We have to fight or there will be nothing left for anyone. What I did was the right thing to do."

Dimitri shook his head, "Tatiana was trying. She was leading Moroi defense training in secret. She might have surprised you had you just waited to see what she was going to do."

"I didn't know that at the time. I just…"she paused, her voice cracking, "I just had to do something to fix things."

"And you figured you could get Vasilisa the crown and use her as your pawn?" The anger in Dimitri's voice had slipped through. Tasha had no only tried to use Lissa to get her own political agenda moved forward but had framed Rose for killing the Queen. He hadn't asked about that yet but it was on the tip of his tongue.

"It wasn't like that Dimka. Lissa has a lot of the same ideas I do, it just worked out that she was the one who could be put in the position to see them be implemented. I wasn't using Lissa, I just wanted to help her. Please believe that."

Dimitri nodded, not satisfied with her answer, "and Rose? Why did she have to take the fall?"

"She was the obvious choice." Tasha said, a snarl in her voice. "It's her fault I am in here anyway."

"And how is that true? Don't you mean you were the reason she was in here?" Dimitri took a deep breath, trying to remain calm so that he could find out how this person that he had always considered a friend could do something like this. "I thought you liked Rose. How could you do that?"

"I have always liked Rose. She is strong and independent and I knew that if anyone could get off that it would be her."

"So you framed her assuming she would get acquitted? What would have happened if she had been found guilty? Would you have said anything to stop her from being put to death? Or would you have just let her die for your crimes? And why go to the trouble of using her stake?" Dimitri really wanted to understand.

"That was the old stake I had access to. I knew she would get off or Abe would get her out of here, just like he did."

"But why her? Why anyone? Why didn't you just not do it? Why send them in her direction?"

Tasha look down and whispered so quietly, Dimitri thought he had heard wrong. "Because I wanted her away from you."

"What?"

Tasha looked up then and met his eyes. "Because I wanted her away from you. If she was in jail she couldn't push you anymore. The spot light would be taken away from you so you could get better. I saw how much her being around was hurting you and I wanted to help you." She reached for his hand.

Realization dawned on Dimitri then. He had thought she had gotten over it. He thought she had moved on from him turning down her offer of a life and a family all those months ago but she hadn't. Maybe this was his fault. But he couldn't blame himself for Tasha's actions.

"You thought that if she was gone then I would fall in love with you?" He said it bluntly, pulling his hand from her grasp.

Tasha saw that he had read the true meaning in her eyes and nodded, ashamed of the split second of torment she saw flash in his. "This isn't your fault. You have never been able to see anyone but her. I thought I could help. I thought that if you didn't love her then you wouldn't be in so much pain. If you thought she had killed Tatiana then you would never look at her in the same light."

"Only one problem with that theory Tasha, I never would have forgotten her and I sure as hell never believed she killed the Queen. She's it for me. She always has been and I'm sorry that that has hurt you. She went half way around the world, literally through hell and back to save my soul and I would do the same for her 1000 times over. Even when I was Strigoi, my thoughts were consumed by her. I lost my soul yet she was still the most important thing in the world to me. That means something."

Dimitri took a moment to collect his thoughts while Tasha just looked at him from inside the cell. Her arms wrapped around her body and she looked as though she might start crying again at any moment.

"When I first changed back, I thought I didn't deserve her. I thought that I couldn't be around her because I would hurt her. It hurt me but I knew I had to stay away and I would have too had it not been for her being put on trial for murder. I truly believe that this whole fucked up ordeal was the catalyst to bring us back together so quickly. Had it not happened, it could have been months or years before we had gotten back together, if ever. So for that I have to say thank you."

Tasha was silent now, staring back at the man she had loved so much. She had done all of this for him when all it ended up doing was costing her her own life. She knew she would be found guilty; there was too much evidence for it not to stick. She could accept that and she would.

"I wish you all the luck in the world Dimka. I hope you and Rose have a long and happy life together." A single tear managed to escape and she turned her eyes away from his.

"I'm sorry it came down to this Tasha. I really am." He wanted to see his friend but just saw the hollow shell of what had been her staring back at him.

She attempted a smile at him and just nodded. "Please protect Christian." She knew that conversation had run its course and all she could do was ask him one final favor.

"With my life." Dimitri grabbed her hand for a moment and squeezed it before turning and heading back down the hallway. An echo of a goodbye followed him and he knew that would be the last he saw of her in this life. He could make peace with that now. He knew her reasons were flawed but at least he knew why.

Rose was waiting for him at the end of the hallway. She knew that this was something he had to do on his own, something she couldn't be around for. They had been friends and no matter what Tasha had done, Dimitri was the type of man to be there for his friends.

"You okay?" She asked with a sad smile on her face as she reached out to him. He nodded and slung his arm over her shoulder, pulling her into his side. "I am now."

Rose nodded and leaned into his warmth, glad they were finally okay.


End file.
